Denial of Petition for Rulemaking; Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards Rear Impact Guards

요약

Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) No. 223 specifies a test procedure for demonstrating that rear impact guards comply with the strength and energy absorption requirements of the standard. This procedure involves a quasi-static test in which the horizontal member of the rear impact guard is slowly pushed for 125 mm, while the amount of resistance it offers is measured. Next, the guard is released and the amount of energy the guard absorbed is calculated. The Truck Trailer Manufacturers Association (TTMA) submitted a petition for rulemaking requesting three changes to the test procedure. First, TTMA requested that we eliminate the lower bound of the range of acceptable rates of force application, so that the force can be applied in discrete start-stop steps. Second, TTMA requested that the requirement to displace the guard by a full 125 mm be eliminated if it appeared that the guard had met all requirements before that point. Third, TTMA suggested that the elastic rebound from guards that rebound very slowly following removal of the force not be subtracted from the calculated energy absorption. Each of the proposed revisions purports to ease the burden of testing on rear